


Pass on the reins

by FinchFingers



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: Alt headcanon, Blood, Fighting, First Fanfiction, Gen, hoping for the best, not rlly sure what im doing, robbery?, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-04 11:28:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11554260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinchFingers/pseuds/FinchFingers
Summary: How the Alternative drifter joins the quest.





	1. Prolog

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction and I'm very nervous.  
> I haven't written in a couple months either, so I'm not too sure of my work!  
> Anyway, wanted to write about Alt because i love her so much this will hopefully be kinda of short and end at the western boss.  
> Thanks for reading!

It was dark. No, not just dark it was heavy and foreboding bleakness that begged anyone who entered to turn back. Normally this place, this domicile, was an area of refuge; somewhere anyone could find safety and help. But in this murky cloak, in this empty state, it looked like it needed help instead.  
The door screeched open, unhappy and unwillingly. It was not accustomed to being open by force. This intruder, this thief, let light cascade through the threshold she stood in bathing a once frantic looking room in calming brightness. She stepped inside shrinking her shadow that gingerly lounged on a table in front of her. It was strange for her to be in here uninvited, it was strange seeing this place forming a thin layer of dust. Her feet moved forward with a soft thud. She could almost hear pacing and the shuffling of paper. Or maybe it was just the breeze the fumbled in on her heels. Whatever it was, the wind or the reverberations of hundreds of nights, it didn’t matter. If she didn’t act soon this place would remain empty and dark forever. It would only echo what it once was. She swallowed, steeling her nerves and stepped firmly into her path.   
The small front room she was in was hectic. Or at least the parts bathed in shadow were. Her feet clicked on the floor as she walked up to the table, eyeing book filled shelves and boxes that were still in murkiness. She logically knew that they wouldn’t, but she was scared they might move and attack her somehow for invading their home. Her hand flicked up and she summoned her faithful companion forward to act as some sort of shield or reassurance. A projectile orb chittered to life and whirled around to where her hand was. It gave off a soft purple glow that soothed her frayed nerves. With her friend in place, she looked at the table. It held a hand drawn map marked with indecipherable symbols. Her clawed fingers traced the glyphs as she tried to read it.   
The map in total was the world, or at least the parts that she knew of. The northern snow tipped mountains, the vast eastern lakes, the lifeless southern desert and the western crystalline forest. Diamonds and skulls pitter-pattered the page and many, many more lines and boxes left inky stains. She had no clue what they meant, but she tried to put some of them in her memory anyway. She swayed on her feet in concentration for a moment, then turned away from the map.   
She thrusted her arm to the right, commanding her bot to hovered to where she pointed. It cast a soft purple glow as it hovered forward showing her the way to navigate the still darkened home. She made her way into a hallway and then into the main chamber. Her eyes squinted and made out shapes in the dark. Though all those shapes looked broken and gruesome as though they had been abandoned for years instead of weeks. She shook the thoughts out of her head and pointed forward again. The bot obeyed drifting next to a bed and awaiting its next order. She stared at the bed for a moment. She was half sure that more strangers had used that it then its actual owner. She walked over and pointed further into the darkness of the room. Her orb floated forward and halted just in front of a storage unit. That was what she was looking for. She trotted past the bed quickly, excitedly, and clicked open the unit. 

 

Wrong one, she thought to herself as she looked at a hanging red cloak. She let out a raw huff of air and closed the unit. She pointed, her orb complied and drifted past a mirror, which shot purple light across the room for a moment, then settled again against a wall.

Bingo! She walked over fast and patted her orb affectionately.

“Good girl,” she cooed at the robot, then she smacked the wall. Or more specifically she smack the light switch on the wall. The light jumped franticly back into the room and drove all remnants of eeriness back into the dark corners of the house. She let out a happy sigh. The room no longer felt like it was disappointed or appalled at her entrance. But it would be again, once she had accomplished her mission. She craned her neck at looked at the storage unit and shelves next to the light switch.  
Little robots sat on the shelves clumped together like dead bugs. They looked like trash, but they were what she was after. He called them Companion Bots. When she had first heard that she thought they were just fancy, flying, fake pets; she learned that they were much more than that. They were essentially multi-purpose robots that could bring someone where many could not normally go. And at the moment she needed one.   
She pawed through a couple models, noting that most where missing pieces or spewing wires, and tried desperately to find a functional one. She tapped symbols and buttons on ones that looked like they might work and discarded them when they did not respond. She grabbed a red one, a yellow one, a white one and gray one; all of them were broken or only briefly flickered to life before dying once again.   
She was growing frustrated with them as she shoved an orange one back on the shelf. She didn’t have time for this. She chattered her teeth and clenched her fist trying to control her emotions. Her projectile bot chirped at the movement of her trigger hand and whirled around her excitedly. It was always in a good mood. 

“I need to be more like you,” She said as she patted the orb. She rolled her tense shoulders pushing anything that was negative down into her stomach and looked back at the little robots. She was running out of options, if one of these last few didn’t work, well she’d have to do things the old fashioned way and simply blow stuff up. And explosives were expensive. And locals never like it when someone blows something up. Her hand snatch a little one off of the desk. It was red and blue and looked like it had been through a life and a half. She tapped a little symbol on its chest and—

The little bot flared to life and jerked almost violently from her hands before settling in the air. She jolted back with a start, her trigger hand came up instantly, calling her projectile orb forward. She stared at the little flying robot and let out a laugh. The thing had scared her, scared her bad. She had been barely a moment away from destroying the very thing she was looking for. The Companion’s optic sensor blinked several times as though it were thinking. She lowered her fist and marveled at it for a moment. She had honestly begun to wonder if any of these Companions worked or if they were simply around for spare parts. The thing blinked again then puttered swiftly past her scanning the room, it looked as though it were searching for something.

“Excuse me,” she snapped at the little bot. It was in the middle of scanning the weapon rack when she spoke and it spun around swiftly. It flared its eye and scanned her then let out a soft little beep. It floated to her side and beeped again. Her ears perked up at that, and she felt a smile creep up under her mask. 

“Welcome to the family,” she clucked at her new companion, “we’ve got a lot of work to do.”


	2. The calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep on moving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty short, and still only setting up the story sorry about that!

She had been called a lot of things over the years; victim, monster, murder, thief and most recently drifter.  She was not fond of many of her titles, no matter how true or false they were, and she never truly adopted anyone of them. It felt like if she were to pick a title, to pick a name, then she would be trapped in that position. And she refused to ever be trapped again. So, she thought of a new name; a name that could fill all titles but also be its own. She thought she was so clever the first time she introduced herself with a title she came up with. She had proudly gone up and announced; _Call me Alt._

She got raised eyebrows and pinched lips

“What’s that short for?” one of her tall, masked companions had asked.

_Alternative, but please call me Alt._

There was another long pause, she understood the confusion. No one gave their real name freely and they dubbed themselves by their occupations. No job or ability they knew of was called alternative and they didn’t know why she had been there.

“What…are you an alternative for?” a big one had question with skeptical eyes.

_Anything really, but right now I’m your Alternative—_

Her thought was cut short by the loud steady sound of water. She hadn’t noticed it until then and her body jerked almost violently out of her thoughts forcing her to pay attention to what was ahead of her. Gleaming white stone stood on the horizon telling all that walked by that the east lands lay just beyond the ridge. Alt stared at it. An old broken bridge tried in vain to extend a hand towards the main land and water cascaded down into a calm steady ravine. Her eyes darted around trying to find a path she could take to enter the east lands. Her body moved swiftly along the edge of doom until her found some broken platforms within jumping distance. She swallowed hard then dashed to the first one, then the second. She was not fond of running to be honest, she was even less found of dashing but found it necessary most of the time. She skidded onto the next little platform, and then the next little platform.

Alt’s feet made contact with that broken bridge. Her eyes fluttered about the monuments and took in all the white stone could give her. It looked smooth and loved; everything looked to be craved expertly by hand and she could see places where use had worn the stone down. She stood up straight and called her Companion forward encouraging it to scan anything of value. It did not and she let out a soft grunt at it.

She moved forward through the gate and took in the scenery. She had been north and west, but the east was mysterious to her. The air was heavy with the smell and taste of water, which she enjoyed, and the sound of flowing water was unavoidable. She paused in her tracks, walked to the edge of the pathway and look down into the water below. The shadows of fish darted by and little bugs dance on the surface. She raised her hand up and launched her orb into the water. She watched the ripples scare some insects under the water or into flight. Alt laughed at them a then turned forward again. The enchantment she felt was suddenly gone when she noticed the broken and tattered path before her. Time had not been kind to these walk ways and she knew her small frame couldn’t simply jump the gaps; she would be dashing again.  She rolled her shouldered and stretched her legs preparing for the journey then started to dash forward. 

Aside from the dashing everything here seemed to bleed serenity and hard work. She found pictures carved into her pathway depicting proud looking otters –the main inhabitants of the eastern lands- and she saw large statues towering out of the water. Moss grew lavishly and birds took flight every now and then when Alt walked by startling them. She dashed onto another platform and let out a heavy breath. She looked up and spotted some sort of gazebo completely filled with plant life. She smiled at it and walked around it enjoying the beauty of the structure and endurance the nature growing inside it. Then she saw them.

They were leaning against one of the gazebo’s pillars and staring blankly forward.   
They were an otter dressed in black with a hood over the white fur and an older looking sword lying next to them.

“Hey!” Alt bolted over to them scared that they were hurt. The otter jerk with a start at her voice and bolted straight up, only to wobble on their feet. She grabbed their shoulder to steady them, and scared them again with her sudden physical presence. “Hey, are you alright?” she questioned the otter again. They looked at her with big glazed eyes that made her worry that they might not understand her.

“I…I’m fine,” they replied which soothed her worries. The otter language seemed to be similar enough to her own native tongue for her to understand. She reached inside her own cloak and slipped a medi-injector out of its holder and offered it to them. They looked at it puzzled for a moment then stammered out, “No, I…You keep it…I just need to sit down.” That did nothing to soothe her worries, but she helped the otter sit down again next to their sword, but set the medi-injector down next to them just in case.

“What happen here?” Her voice sounded brutish compared to the otter’s. They stared at her and took in a shaky breath. She crouched next to them and placed a hand on their shoulder hoping to anchor them down in the present and not in whatever had happened. They pulled their knees up to the chest, shrugged her hand off and hid their face in their pants.

“S-something awful,” they said in a muffled voice. “They came and…everyone just… and… that monster is just sitting there and and,” They started to cry after that which made Alt stand up and back away a little. She was not found of tears, and she was not the best at comforting people.

“Hey, it’s…it’s gunna be fine,” she said even though her ears flickered back, “you don’t have to say any more, but listen if you keep going west you’ll find a safe spot called Central. There’s folks there who will help you.”

The otter nodded a bit but did not look up. She watched their shoulders shake with tears for a moment. She wondered if she could do anymore to help, but she doubted her ability to properly handle the situation and moved on. Her mind tried to shout at her all the possible reasons for the otter’s distresses but she shoved them away. She knew she find out soon enough, she only hoped that it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be longer!


End file.
